


An Unexpected Intruder

by DelilahBlueEyes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahBlueEyes/pseuds/DelilahBlueEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle made it back to The Dark Castle. It took Rumple a while to realize it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unexpected Intruder

There was someone in the castle. The wheel ground to a halt under Rumpelstiltskin’s pressing fingers so that he could better hear the clatter echoing all the way up to his tower from somewhere in the massive, drafty heap of stones he called home. He stood and strode quickly toward the door, taking the stairs three at a time, light as a cat on his feet but moving with an inhuman speed through the shadowy corridors to the main staircase. Whoever was stupid enough to set foot on his grounds now, after he’d turned away the queen of the land of all people, would pay for the indiscretion with their life. He hadn’t been feeling much in the mood to have any guests since…. The image of a delicate porcelain cup stained with the perfect imprint of two primly smirking lips flashed across his mind and he found himself stood in the wide doorway of his dining room. The intruder was not immediately obvious—at least not until she knocked her head against the underside of his dining table and let out a string of surprisingly lilting curses. He moved slowly around the edge of the room until he could see properly and was faced with a swath of skirts, swishing cheerily away as the wearer scrambled about with her hands, doing gods above only knew what.

 

“Bad decision, dearie. Whatever you’re after I hope it was worth d- d-…” His voice caught in his throat, swelling and building upon itself until he thought he would choke.

Because when the stranger shuffled backwards on her hands and knees and pushed herself up to her feet, stumbling slightly when she trod on skirt, she was no stranger at all. She wore a plain but elegant linen dress, dyed a delicate shade of lavender and edged with ribbon that matched the bow that held her thick, curling hair away from her eyes. She was slight, and curvaceous and fair and lovely. She was his Belle.

“I- I was cleaning some glass. I stepped on a piece and thought it would be best to clear it all away before…” she gestured down to the place where her dainty toes peaked out from beneath her dress, foot twisting nervously under his gaze. “I didn’t want to forget it.”

He moved as if in a dream, dropping slowly to his knees before her and guiding her gently by the hips to face the sturdy tabletop. His fingers found her slender ankle beneath her voluminous skirt and lifted it gently from the ground, giving her time to bend her knee to accommodate him. She made some protest that he ignored, hearing only the suddenly breathy note behind the words as he allowed his fingers to drift over the creased skin at the inside of her instep. She was warm and firm where his hand wrapped around the front of her shin, cradling and stabilizing her even as he felt himself floating away into the heavens. The cut was healed with half a thought, not much more than a scratch really, but he didn’t stop touching her even after all traces of damage were removed from her soft skin. And what soft skin it was, except where the soles had roughened as if from frequently going barefoot. The contrast between the silky skin of her leg and the slight drag of the pads of her toes made his breath catch again as he imagined her wandering through flower fields with her toes squelching in the soil.

“Why were you cleaning glass?” He asked because he couldn’t ask the more obvious questions yet. Why are you here? Why have you returned? Why can you stand to have me touch you? He couldn’t bring himself to voice them.

She turned slowly and tipped her head down to look at him, lips parting with a sn audible pop. “Because I finished dusting your collection and stepped on it on my way down to the kitchens to find a mop and bucket.”

His hands came up to grip the edge of the table to either side of her, nails grinding into the dense wood. He was almost too afraid to actually touch her again, afraid that it would overwhelm him, the smell of her and the closeness. The heat from her radiated out to him anyway, piercing the thin fabric of his silk shirt to be absorbed by his skin like dusty ground sucking up water after a drought. “Why are you cleaning at all?”

“Because that’s what you brought me here to do.”

She seemed not to have the same fear as he did, of course not, and laid a slim hand along his shoulder. He could feel the weight of each individual little finger, could feel with acute clarity the way her thumb travelled in a small circle at the base of his neck. His skin seemed to spark and catch fire where she touched him, coming alive so fully that he nearly trembled with the shock of it. She was here, she had returned, and she was saving him—rescuing him again, his determined little hero.

“I’ve been here three days,” she murmured, though he barely heard her over the rumbling groan that left his mouth when she drew her other hand through his hair. “I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of you in that time. I wasn’t sure you were here until I heard you walking about yesterday morning.”

“Oh,” he whispered, and for a moment he was so tense that he seemed to turn to stone. She was here to pay her debt. She would stay because she had to. She would keep her word. He sucked in a breath to tell her she needn’t stay but the hand in his hair slipped down to rest at the nape of his neck and he surrendered to that light touch, dropping his head against her stomach and letting his breath escape him in a sigh. No one decided her fate but her. If she’d returned it was because she wanted to; because she knew what a monster like him was capable of and still she’d continue to try to save the small part of him that remained human. He’d hurt her, gripped her arms so tight that he must have left bruises, thrown her to the floor of her cell, shouted in her face, called her a liar. And here she was, standing before him once again. His hands lifted from the ten perfect holes they’d gouged in the surface of the table and slowly wrapped around her, pressing flat against her back and between her shoulder blades to pull her gently against him. “I love you.”

He heard clearly from where his cheek was pressed against the thin boning of her corset when her breath whooshed out of her, and though she was holding him as much as he was clinging to her, he still feared that he’d misspoke.

“Stand up, please,” she whispered and he was helpless to refuse, though he only wished to stay wrapped around her until he crumbled to dust. He rose from his knees, feeling all of his two hundred and some odd years as he looked down into her glowing, youthful face. He could only imagine what she saw as he looked back. “Say it again,” she instructed.

He let out a breathless laugh, startling himself when he responded playfully with a finger wagging under her nose. “You first.”

She laughed too, placing her hands on his shoulders in a gesture so familiar from the day he cast her out that he nearly wept. Her eyes shone suspiciously bright and he cuddled her a bit closer, unhappy at even the thought of joyful tears clouding her vision.

“Rumpelstiltskin, I love—mm!”

He launched himself forward, covering her lips with his before she could complete the sentence. He couldn’t hear it. Not yet. Much as he wished to believe, craved with every fiber of his being to know that she’d forgiven him, he couldn’t stand to hear the words in her lovely lilting voice. He’d endeavor to make it up to her every moment of every day if she would stay with him. He would tell her everything about him, his past, his mistakes, his sole reason for clinging to his power with the tenacity he did. There would be no walls between then if she wished it. But he would accept no words, (for after all, he knew the binding finality of words, played them like an experienced musician with their favorite instrument) no words of forgiveness until he’d earned them. As her arms slid around his neck and her breath gusted against his upper lip in a sigh, he thought perhaps he’d started his penance already. When her nails dug into his scalp in ten delicious little stinging points, he began to wonder in what other ways she would accept an apology from him, and whether she’d object to beginning right here in the dining room…


End file.
